Court defends freedom of speech, religion

Guelph Mercury

How far can Christians go in expressing biblical truth? A recent Alberta Court of Appeal ruling in the Stephen Boissoin case provides the answer.

Boissoin’s decade-long battle began when the Red Deer Advocate ran his letter to the editor where he railed against the “homosexual machine” and the “militant homosexual agenda.” He ended by encouraging “Mr. and Mrs. Heterosexual” to “start taking back what the enemy has taken from you.”

Shortly afterwards, Darren Lund, a gay activist, said the letter was the cause of the assault of a local gay teenager. Lund complained to the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission, which found Boissoin guilty of violating the province’s Human Rights, Multiculturalism and Citizenship Act.

Boissoin appealed. The Court of Queens’ Bench overturned the decision and penalties. Lund appealed again. A few weeks ago the Alberta Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s decision. Justice Clinton O’Brien said: “Matters of morality, including the perceived morality of certain types of sexual behaviour, are topics for discussion in the public forum. Freedom of speech does not just protect polite speech.”

The case is one of a number of freedom of speech and freedom of religion cases that began in the late 1990s, early 2000s. Two of the others, which received the most media coverage, were:

• Hugh Owen, who placed an ad in Saskatchewan Star Phoenix that showed two stick men holding hands with a superimposed universal “no” symbol — a red circle with a slash — and four Bible references.

• Toronto printer Scott Brockie, who refused to print material for the Canadian Gay and Lesbian Archives because he felt it went against his Christian beliefs.

Human rights commissions ruled against both men. But the Charter of Rights and Freedoms provisions for freedom of religion and speech are for all Canadians — not just a select few. Even the federal government gave a nod to religious freedom when it passed the Civil Marriage Act in 2005: “No person or organization shall be deprived of any benefit, or be subject to any obligation or sanction, under any law of the Parliament of Canada solely by reason of their exercise, in respect of marriage between persons of the same sex, of the freedom of conscience and religion guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the expression of their beliefs in respect of marriage as the union of a man and woman to the exclusion of all others based on that guaranteed freedom.”

The Boissoin ruling now suggests we have the right to voice religious convictions, no matter how counter-cultural they seem. As John Milton states in Areopagitica: “And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?”

We do need to be judicious in voicing our convictions. More than once I’ve counselled fellow Christians to be as “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10: 16, King James Version) when expressing their views. But, for the moment, Christians have the freedom to express those convictions.

Robert White is a Guelph-based freelance journalist specializing in faith-based issues and author of Chasing the Wind (Word Alive Press).